


Civil Rights Law in the 23rd Century

by traveller



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, WIP Amnesty, space racism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 01:58:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traveller/pseuds/traveller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So it was a usual Wednesday morning, with Jim giving dramatic readings from the crank file <em>(Well, it all started when me and Devethz were burning some stuff out behind the hangar, and then the police showed up. They snapped off my antennae...)</em> and Bones stretched out on the client sofa with a cup of coffee on his stomach and a throw pillow over his face until it was time for him to do the girl voices. </p><p>Then the Vulcan knocked on the door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Civil Rights Law in the 23rd Century

**Author's Note:**

> Contains a mashup of real American civil rights law and fake Federation law, because of reasons. It's best not to think too much about details.
> 
>  **NB:** claiming WIP amnesty; just posting it here for archival purposes.

What you had to understand about Jim Kirk was that while his mother was in labor with him, his dad had been at the helm of a StarPeace ship, an ancient decommed cruiser with the unlikely name of the  _SS Kelvin_ , the center on a bullseye that was StarPeace's ill advised attempt at blockading Romulan mining ships from drilling on Chara III. George Kirk lashed himself to the wheel, both literally and metaphorically, allowing his fellow xenoflora-huggers time to flee while he refused every last order to desist and depart. The Romulans fired, the Kelvin turned out to have had its weapons decommissioned as well, George Kirk was vindicated in his death by Federation investigators looking more closely at the whole clusterfuck and finding shall we say discrepancies with the mining permits. Chara III's fragile ecosystem and burgeoning humanoid society was spared, and Jim Kirk got to grow up hearing about how his dad was the very ideal of a crusader for justice, a man who'd made the ultimate sacrifice for the lives and sovereignty of other beings. 

So of course, Jim said fuck the hippies and went to law school. 

Bones met Jim when Jim was representing the erstwhile Mrs. Dr. Leonard McCoy in their divorce proceedings, in which Bones was cleaned out down to the lint in his pockets and the mold in the back of his cooler. McCoy turned around and hired Jim to sue his divorce attorney for inadequate representation, and Jim took said attorney for  _his_  money, lint and mold, setting McCoy up fairly nicely for the rest of his years. Which would be few, because Jim was going to be the fucking death of him. 

At some point, despite Jim's best efforts to stay the fuck out of any case that carried even a whiff of Justice, his practice shifted from easy payouts and embattled spouses and toward cases that made his mother cross her arms and say things like  _well, I guess this one won't make your father's spirit shrivel in horror at your soulless amoral neo-capitalist career choices_  and Jim say,  _well, Ma, we can't all be vaporized for the good of the universe,_  and then the screaming would start, and Bones would find himself in Jim's office, drunk, at 3 in the afternoon while Jim paced the suite and ranted about the Federation Bill of Rights to displace his anger about his fucked up family. 

The case that put Kirk & Associates (& Associates because Jim counted Bones, no matter how many times Bones told him not to) on the map was a housing discrimination case -- a Federation-funded free colony was denying placements to Bolians, which in itself wasn't really news, the polygamy thing put a lot of other cultures off, whatever, their rights were being violated, open and shut. The news angle was the adorable 12 year old Bolian girl who wrote to Jim in the first place, saying she'd seen his ad on the feed saying he didn't believe in no-win cases and would he take hers?

The media attention made the colonial governors dig in their heels and appeal, and appeal again, and then Jim was in front of a Supreme Court panel doing his very best Clarence Darrow, going on in an impassioned defense of the family's right to live in the colony, the  _entire_  family, co-wives and husbands and kids and all, practicing their culture, and wasn't that what the Federation was all about? 

It wasn't even a landmark victory, in terms of caselaw, it reaffirmed the right of all Federation member-species to reside on any Federation colony or world regardless of cultural practice, but it was on every screen for galaxies around: Jim Kirk, son of the martyr, shaking his fist at the bench while he argued for the equal rights of all beings. Somehow, overnight, Jim was the poster boy for civil rights law in the 23rd century. 

So it was a usual Wednesday morning, with Jim giving dramatic readings from the crank file ( _Well, it all started when me and Devethz were burning some stuff out behind the hangar, and then the police showed up. They snapped off my antennae..._ ) and Bones stretched out on the client sofa with a cup of coffee on his stomach and a throw pillow over his face until it was time for him to do the girl voices. 

Then the Vulcan knocked on the door.

The facts of the case were simple. Lieutenant Commander Spock and Lieutenant Uhura, his--

"-girlfriend," Jim supplied.

"-fiancee," Bones corrected.

"-mate?" Jim countered, with a shrug and spread of hands that conveyed  _I don't even know, okay, Vulcans_  surprisingly clearly. 

"Betrothed," Spock said firmly, and it was hard to tell whether or not that was a scowl, what with the eyebrows. 

Spock and his  _betrothed_  were both members of Starfleet, and as such they wanted to be married in the Federation. They could be married on Vulcan -- "my own parents set the precedent," Spock said with the barest curl of his lip -- or they could have a Terran ceremony, or both, but those marriages would only be legally recognized,  _technically_ , by those sovereignties and by whatever Federation states had formalized reciprocity. Should any other authority within the Federation choose to challenge the bond, they could easily do so, unless the couple had a Federation license. 

"Why would anyone--?" Jim began, and Spock cut him off. 

"An inexplicably high number of improbable things happen on deep space missions," he said, and the sort of frantic way his left eyebrow twitched basically screamed DON'T ASK. 

"I'm still not seeing a problem," Bones said, heaving himself off the couch and taking his coffee over to the pot for a warm up. 

"There would not be a problem," Spock said, inclining his head, "were it not for the fact that the officiant we chose -- a captain who frequently performs marriages for Starfleet officers -- refused to do so on the grounds that Lt. Uhura is human, and I... am not." 

"So you couldn't find another captain to do it?" 

"Stop helping, Bones." 

"Does your associate--" 

"Yeah, he's a doctor, not a lawyer," Jim cut in. "Obviously there's some other issue, or you wouldn't be here, right, Commander?"

"Precisely." Spock glanced down at the floor; he was sitting in the chair set at an angle to Jim's desk, the idea being that it felt more like a collaboration than a visit to the headmaster's office. Jim had had extensive experience with the latter, so he was probably right. Spock looked back up at Bones then, who was leaning on the bookcase, sipping his coffee. 

"Does not Dr--" 

"Bones."

"McCoy." 

"Does not Dr. McCoy's presence invalidate my presumption of privacy?" Spock was tilting his head again, his eyes slightly narrowed. 

"You mean, like, privilege? Nah, Bones has a confidentiality agreement." Jim flapped his hand. "Besides, doctors have the same thing, right? It's all the same." 

Spock opened his mouth like he was going to argue the nuances of the difference between attorney/client and doctor/patient privilege, and then snapped it shut again. Bones looked at Jim. Jim looked at Spock. Spock looked at Bones. 

Bones said, "Seriously, kid, just spit it out," and Spock's head tipped in the other direction. Jim got the feeling that was bad. 

"Just pretend he's not here," he advised, and Spock blinked very slowly. 

"I suppose you are not aware of a law," he said in a voice just as measured as his expression, "that prohibits interspecies marriage in the Federation?" 

"Yeah, it was passed in the really early days when we were still a bunch of xenophobes pretending to get along. It's been overturned, though." At Spock's eyebrow, Jim shook his head. "It has to have been. Nobody's enforced it in a hundred years, I mean." 

"I have already confirmed that the law remains in effect," Spock said. "Captain Beauregard cited it in his refusal to perform our ceremony, and suggested that were we to find another officiant who would disregard the law, he would be forced to report us." 

"Thereby ruining your service record." Jim's lip curled in disgust. 

"Precisely." Spock folded his hands on his lap, his thumbs pressed together at the pads. "I wish... to end this law. I wish to prevent this man, and others who think like him, from using an antiquated statute to legitimize his racism. I can see no other course but legal action.

"This should be pretty simple," Jim said, tapping his index finger on the screen of his PADD. "We file for a TRO to suspend enforcement of the law, we name not just this Beauregard -- really? Beauregard? -- we name him and the Federation itself as defendants. The court will definitely grant the order, I mean, shit. It's the 23rd century. You get another captain lined up and ready to go, and boom. Married."

Later Bones would accuse Jim of jinxing the whole thing by having the audacity to tempt fate by saying "this should be simple," and Jim would accuse Bones of jinxing the whole thing by hanging around the office like a drunken bird of ill omen, and Commander Spock would just glance back and forth between them and touch his temple very briefly. 

Seventy-two hours after filing Spock's suit, Jim received word that the court had denied the TRO. Stunned, he scrambled together an appeal, filed, and got slapped down again, almost imemdiately. 

"What the actual fuck?" Jim yelled on the comm to Judge Shallash. "You can't claim this law is even remotely constitutional." 

"I can't talk to you, Kirk," the judge hissed. "Gods above. You're going to get me disbarred." 

"You  _should_  be disbarred." Jim pointed at the screen, voice rising to a newly discovered volume. "You should be stripped of your robes and put in a pod and shot onto an ice planet. What the fuck constitution are you  _reading_?" 

Shallash pointed back. "Contempt." 

"Fine me." 

"With joy," Shallash said. "Merka? File an order of contempt against Attorney James T. Kirk, Bar number EA7585439." 

There was an affirmative chirping sound behind him, and then the whoosh of a closing door. 

"You have my bar number memorised, that's so sweet." 

"Look," Shallash said, pushing his face closer to the screen. His snout was really enormous at that angle. "Merka will be about five minutes, so listen good. If you appeal again, the Vulcan High Council's going to file an amicus in support of the anti-interspecies law. They're going to argue that the law should be upheld to prevent further dilution of their race." 

"Further dil-- shit. Spock's folks?" 

"You can guess who the dissenting member of the High Council was when they made the decision." Shallah scowled. "Talk to your client. Convince him not to pursue this any further. Kirk, it's going to cause a political shitstorm if he does." 

Jim sat back, staring at the screen. 

"And you didn't hear any of this from me." Shallash made some kind of gesture. It might've been meant to be threatening. It looked more like he was having trouble with his motion controlled blinds. 

"Right," Jim said. "Kirk out."


End file.
